Facilitating Meaningful Contact in Adoption and Fostering ─ A Trauma-Informed Approach to Planning, Assessing and Good Practice

Most children who are fostered or adopted have some level of contact with their birth family -- whether face-to-face or by letter -- yet most of the time the psychological impact of contact on the child isn't considered. This book explores what attachment, neuroscience and trauma tell us about how contact affects children, and shows how poorly executed contact can be unhelpful or even harmful to the child. Assessment frameworks are provided which take the child's developmental needs into account. The authors also outline a model for managing and planning contact to make it more purposeful and increase its potential for therapeutic benefit. The book covers the challenges presented by the internet for managing contact, unique issues for children in kinship care, problems that arise when adoptive parents separate and many other key issues for practice. Brimming with practical advice and creative solutions, this is an indispensable tool for social workers, contact centre workers, and other professionals involved in contact arrangements or the therapeutic support of fostered and adopted children.

Louis Sydney is a Child and Adult Psychotherapist and Specialist Adoption Consultant who has been working with children and families for over 10 years. He has training in TheraplayR, Dan Hughes' Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP), Somatic Experience and Story Stems, and a Diploma in Supervision from the Gestalt Centre. Elsie Price is a Qualified Social Worker and Practice Teacher with over 35 years' experience of working with looked after children. Elsie has also trained by Dan Hughes in the use of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) and The Theraplayc Institute. She works as a Consultant Therapeutic Social Worker at Adoptionplus. Adoptionplus is a therapeutic voluntary adoption agency based in Buckinghamshire, near Milton Keynes, UK, offering an adoption placement service, specialist therapy services, training and conferences.